Have you ever had an experience that
changed your life overnight? I did. It was a mental and spiritual awakening.
There were healings, and life-long questions about God were answered.

I had seen proof of the promise
Jesus made when he declared, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matt. 6:33)

But the story behind all of this
is why I'm here. You see, I had glimpsed, to some degree, what the Bible and
Christian Science are saying about God and man.

When I gave this experience some
deep thought, I came to the conclusion that there were three factors involved,
and I'll be talking about them throughout the lecture. Now, these factors may
not occur in every instance of spiritual awakening, but I've come to see that
they're usually present, even though they may not be recognized.

The first factor is what I call a
mental readiness for the awakening. Second, I consider to be the influence of
the Christ. Third, is an acceptance of the revelation of Truth contained in the
Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. I'll
be telling you more about this book and its author, Mary Baker Eddy, who
discovered and founded Christian Science.

Right now, I want to elaborate
upon these three factors, relate how they occurred in my own life. This will
help to illustrate the subject of the lecture, God's man or Adam's man.

This mental state I mentioned was
made up of things I believed and felt before I became a student of Christian
Science. Like many people in various Christian denominations, I earnestly
wanted to obey God and be a good Christian. But I had a feeling that there was
something more to be known about God than I knew. I couldn't label it an
intellectual wrestling. You might call it a spiritual yearning.

Also, I had concepts about
Christianity that those around me didn't share. For one thing, I thought it was
my Christian duty to be healthy. This led me to assume that food was God's
medicine. If God had put food here on earth, I reasoned, He must have put the
right kind to keep us well. So I spent many hours studying nutrition and
preparing vitamin-rich meals.

You can see that this first
factor, my mental readiness, included a belief in God, as well as a desire to
know more about God. But alongside those thoughts were false concepts which
were ready to be influenced by the Christ.

For example, one day when I was
chopping some green peppers into a bowl of grated cabbage, I found myself
thinking: if God put all this good food here on earth to keep my family well,
why does it take so much of my time to prepare it? It seemed to me that God
would have preferred me to spend more time thinking about Him, or studying the
Bible or something, instead of worrying about things such as green peppers and
cabbage. You see, it was dawning on me that there was something more to
existence than material bodies that needed to be nourished by certain kinds of
matter.

That moment of spiritual
reasoning had such an influence on my thought that I stopped depending on food
for our well-being. I stopped giving food a power it just didn't have. I began
to trust more in God's care for all of us. Now let me clarify this. There's
nothing wrong with enjoying wholesome food. But, you can see in my case, I was
making a god of it!

There were other experiences, but
the incident most related to my story happened one Sunday just before
Christmas. I was teaching a Sunday School class of nine-year-old girls. One of
them asked me: "Mrs. Jones, why did my grandmother have to die?"

Ordinarily, I might have made
some comment about it being God's will. But I couldn't that day. Something had
changed my thinking! I couldn't explain what it was, but suddenly I had a very
deep conviction that death was no part of God's doing. Of course, I comforted
the child. But for days afterward I felt overwhelmed, almost depressed, by what
I thought was my ignorance of God.

Then, on New Year's Day, when
members of my family were making New Year's resolutions, I found myself saying
that my resolution for that year was to find out more about God!

Now we've come to that second
factor. It's the Christ. Those mental stirrings, those promptings to reach out
beyond a material sense of things to a higher, more spiritual view, were what I
came to identify later as the Christ.

You may be thinking: wasn't your
mental readiness another way of explaining the activity of the Christ? In a
way. The Christ was certainly preparing me mentally. But I'd like to separate
the first factor  which included my willingness to yield  from the second factor,
the influence of the Christ. But I want to move along and tell you about the
third factor: my acceptance of the revelation.

Just a few nights after I'd made
that resolution to find out more about God, I was introduced to Christian
Science. I had no quarrel with what I was told about Christian Science. I'd
always believed God could heal. I had faith in the power of prayer. But
something rather dramatic happened. I'd been given a copy of the textbook,
Science and Health. I turned to page 465 and read this: "Question: What is
God? Answer: God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth, Love."

The impact of that moment is
indescribable. All I can recall at this point is that I was certain this was
the revelation of some great Truth. And I was certain of something else. It
wasn't something Mrs. Eddy had humanly devised. God had revealed it to her!

Within twenty-four hours after I
began to read the textbook there were five instantaneous healings in our home:
a burn, a nosebleed, a headache, a sore throat, and a sprained knee. Each of
these healings came about after I had read other statements in Science and
Health and accepted them without resistance or reservation.

Now, I had healings before
through prayer, but never as the result of reading a book.

So what made Science and Health
so unique? For one thing, it explains the teachings of Christ Jesus. It reveals
the spiritual nature of God and His creation. And, as I continued to read, I
found an answer to every question I'd ever had about God.

Healing is spiritual awakening

By this time you may be thinking:
but what does all this have to do with me? I've heard Christian Science can
help me with my problems. How does it heal?

Everything I've told you is related
to healing. Every human problem, whether it is physical, financial, mental, or
social, is basically a theological problem because it concerns one's concept of
God and man. And in Christian Science the solution to every problem comes as we
yield to a spiritual concept of God and man.

Actually, healing is awakening.
It's awakening to what is already real and true about God and His creation. Let
me illustrate these points with a healing.

A young mother I know had vivid
proof of these statements one afternoon when her twelve-year old son fell from
a tree and injured his back.

She'd been studying Christian
Science for about a year and was reluctant to force her religious convictions
on her son. And, she didn't want to prevent her husband from seeking medical
help for the boy if he so desired. So, she offered to take her son to a
hospital.

But the boy strongly insisted
that she call a Christian Science practitioner to pray for him. He'd learned a
lot about God that year in a Christian Science Sunday School. Because God was
the only Cause and Creator, and He'd created only good, whatever wasn't good
was no part of God's creation and therefore it had no power to harm his man.
This was why, the instant he felt the tree branch break under his weight, and
realized he was falling, the boy could yell, "It's a lie! It's a
lie!"

The mother helped her son home
and tried to reach her husband at his office. But the line stayed busy, so she
called a practitioner.

She didn't mince words. She
blurted right out that her son had fallen about twenty-five feet, landed on his
back, and was in terrible pain. In other words, she reported what was visible
to the eye. But the mother and practitioner knew the report was a lie about the
boy's true being. Because he was God's man, he coexisted with God and could
never fall from his high estate. But this wasn't ignoring the severe physical
symptoms. Together, practitioner, mother, and child, had to break through the
belief that he was mortal and material and separated from God.

These three spent several hours
in quiet communion with ever-present divine Love, realizing the truth of man's
inviolate perfection. This wasn't a pleading with God to make a mortal whole
again, but a joyous acknowledging that man, made in His image, is forever unfallen,
upright, and free.

The practitioner assured the
mother, "Man can't be pulled earthward. He can only be pulled
Godward!"

The young man progressed rapidly.
Most of the pain vanished within moments and the soreness gradually subsided.
Twenty-four hours later he was back playing catcher on his Little League ball
team. And there were no aftereffects.

His healing was so complete that
at the end of that season he pitched for his team in the All-Star tournament,
and was the only twelve-year-old pitcher who played the entire game without
requiring a relief pitcher.

You can see from this experience
why Christian Scientists choose spiritual healing over medical help. It's not
because we don't believe in doctors, as we often hear. It's because we've
learned that the prayer of spiritual understanding is an effective healing
prayer.

Healing through prayer has always
been a natural ingredient of Christianity. Many churches today are practicing
some form of healing. But there's a difference between merely seeking a bodily
cure and genuine spiritual healing. Spiritual healing, as we see it, goes
beyond the relief of physical distress. It goes right to the heart of the
problem to man's relationship with God. And this regenerates!

It should be obvious by now that
positive thinking could not have restored that young man. Nor auto-suggestion.
What did restore him was the scientific prayer which Christian Scientists are
convinced was the healing method of Jesus and his disciples.

Mrs. Eddy describes this prayer
in Science and Health: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who
appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect
man the Savior saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the
sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that
man is pure and holy." (pp. 476-477)

The distinction between God's man and Adam's man

This spiritual understanding I've
mentioned, the awakening I told you about earlier, and the healing I just
described, are related to the distinction Christian Science makes between God's
man and Adam's man.

To clarify this, let's consider
the first and second chapters of Genesis in the Bible. The first chapter of
Genesis records God's creation, the one He beheld as "very good"
(Gen. 1:31). Let me read what this account says about man: "So God created
man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them." (Gen. 1:27)

The second chapter of Genesis
tells the story of Adam and Eve. It gives the impression of an entirely
different creation, one in which the Lord God made man of the dust of the
ground. But there's a verse in that second chapter that's significant to this
discussion. It's this one: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and he slept." (Gen. 2:21)

As you may know, there are quite
a few theories set forth about those first two chapters in Genesis. But
Christian Science takes a radical view of both. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy
explains that the first chapter of Genesis records the one and only creation of
the universe, and this is a spiritual creation. What's the basis for this view?

One reason is that Jesus himself
defined God as Spirit, adding, "... and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24) So, if God is Spirit, His
creation would be a spiritual creation. Certainly the man He created in His own
image would be a spiritual kind of man.

This means that the second
chapter, the allegory of Adam and Eve, represents a false concept of creation.
It describes a sinful mortal living in a matter world, all of which is a
misconception of the real man, made in God's image.

This clarification about the two
accounts of creation was a turning point for me. But I gained further insight
when I read Mrs. Eddy's definition of the deep sleep. You see, she refers to
the deep sleep that fell upon Adam as the "Adam-dream". This term so
fascinated me that I checked it out for myself. I went through those passages
in Genesis, and made an interesting discovery: there's no indication that Adam
ever woke up!

Things really fell into place
then. I saw there had never been two kinds of man  God's man and Adam's man.
There was only one: God's man. And the false concept known as the race of Adam
was only a belief that man is a mortal. Think about this: the word mortal means
death. It comes from the root word "mors". Really, could mortality be
what God, divine Life, has bestowed upon His precious children?

So, the only existence Adam's man
has is in ignorant mortal thought, or belief. And belief has a hypnotic hold on
thought, until thought is enlightened by understanding.

It's interesting that the
definition of hypnotism is deep sleep. When we sleep, whatever we dream seems absolutely
real, until we wake up. So, we might say, we dream the dream of Adam until the
Christ awakens us.

Surely this must be what the
Apostle Paul meant when he exclaimed, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise
from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Eph. 5:14)

This provides an insight into
some of the misconceptions the public has about Christian Science. Many of
these misconceptions stem from a misunderstanding of what we're saying about
those first two chapters in Genesis. But our standpoint remains clear and
consistent.

Mrs. Eddy writes: "Anybody,
who is able to perceive the incongruity between God's idea and poor humanity,
ought to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between
God's man, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam." (Science and
Health, p. 345)

The Christ awakens us from the Adam dream

You've already seen examples of
what the Christ does. Now I want to clarify just what the Christ is, according
to Christian Science. The Christ is God's redeeming message and healing power.
Jesus is our Way-shower. He has shown us all the way of salvation. It's through
his life that we see what is meant by the expression "son of God".
Though Jesus the man was crucified, rose from the grave, and ascended, the
Christ is eternally with us.

Another way of explaining the
Christ is that it's the divine influence in human consciousness which shows us
our link with God. Whenever we feel the impulse to be kind, to refrain from
anger or revenge, this hints at the presence of the Christ. Whenever we yearn
to know more about God, to draw closer to Him, the Christ has touched our
consciousness.

Sometimes the Christ comes
dramatically. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus is an example of this.
But the effect of the Christ can also be gentle and gradual.

Someone may be wondering at this
point: if the Christ has never left the earth, why hasn't the world been
regenerated by now? Why hasn't mankind awakened from this Adam-dream? That's a
good question. The answer, of course, is the deep sleep.

Let me illustrate. Have you ever
been sound asleep in a dark room and someone came in and switched on the
overhead light? Some of us might not notice the light  we'd just keep on
sleeping. Or, we might become conscious of it gradually and after a bit open
our eyes. It's quite possible that some of us would be pained by the light and
pound the pillows in protest. Then again, someone else might throw a pillow and
break the light so it could never again interrupt his sleep!

This analogy indicates the
resistance of mortal thought to yielding to spiritual existence. And it gives a
clue as to why spiritual healing was lost by the third century A.D. Spiritual
healing, as surely as spiritual awakening, depends on how totally we let the
Christ break through the dream of material existence.

It's encouraging to know we don't
have to have a deep understanding of all these things in order for the Christ
to shatter this dream. I had a lovely proof of this early in my experience. One
morning as I was helping my little girl get dressed, I noticed an ugly ringworm
on her body. I'd seen spots similar to this on neighbors' children. But I
refused to be alarmed. Just that morning, I'd read the Christian Science Bible
Lesson on the subject, "Adam and Fallen Man," and the inspiration of
that study was still with me. Suddenly, this thought came to me: "Are you
going to believe this child is a mortal with material flesh that can be
diseased? Or will you accept her perfection as God's image?" And I began
to see that because God didn't create disease  it certainly wasn't there in
the first chapter of Genesis  I didn't have to fear it or honor it. But, I saw
something more. I couldn't picture her with a healthy matter body any more than
a diseased matter body.

When this clear realization came
to me, along with it came a wonderful sense of peace. My daughter called me
back shortly. By then I'd forgotten about the ringworm, until I realized I was
looking at the very place it had been. There was no longer the slightest trace
of it. And, she never had another one.

I had glimpsed just a little of
the distinction Christian Science was making between God's man and Adam's man.

I wish I could say that every
healing in Christian Science is this simple and clear-cut and quick, but I've
come to see that underlying every spiritual healing are the same three factors
I brought out in the beginning. There must be a mental readiness for the
healing, and a willingness to yield to the influence of the Christ, and an
acceptance of the revelation of the truth of God and man.

Divine Mind, not the human mind, is the healer

One of the most progressive steps
in our awakening from the Adam-dream is to learn what the Apostle Paul meant by
"putting on the Mind of Christ".

You see, the belief in a material
body includes the belief of a material brain. Most people assume that brain is
their source of thought. But this is a limited sense of what true intelligence
is, a false belief about omniscience, which is God, divine Mind.

But the belief that man has a
personal mind deludes a lot of people into thinking the human mind can cure.
Such mental methods as mind control, psychic healing, witchcraft, are all, more
or less, projections of human willpower, springing from the human mind. There's
nothing new about methods that rely on mental manipulation. Only the names for
them change.

Some people who're familiar with
the mental methods I just named, but who're not familiar with the spiritual
nature of Christian Science healing, sometimes confuse it with one of these
methods. Even hypnotism.

For example, I've been asked to
explain on several occasions how Christian Scientists knew for sure they
weren't using hypnotism when they prayed for themselves and others. Perhaps we
were merely hypnotizing people into believing they were well. I pointed out
that people hypnotize themselves into believing they're sick. And the truth
about the spiritual perfection of God and His man, dehypnotizes them. It wakes
them up from the dream that existence is material.

This false concept of a mortal
personality with a personal mind isn't easy to give up. It was just one reason
so many resisted the Master's teachings. They were convinced that Adam's man
was really the image of God. And this caused them to overlook the Christ right
in their midst.

At one point, Jesus' healings
were labeled the works of Beelzebub. That was a popular name in those days for
the devil. But the Master's response to this accusation clearly separates the
human mind's attempt to heal from the spiritual method of the Christ.

Let me read this from Matthew:
"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every
city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan cast out
Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? ... But
if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto
you." (Matt. 12:25,26,28)

So you see, Adam's man has no
power to regenerate himself. Only the Christ can save mankind from its deep
sleep, with its sins of the flesh.

Spiritual sense enables us to understand the spiritual

This is why awakening from the
Adam-dream is not a one-time event. It's an on-going process. Mrs. Eddy says,
"A grain of Christian Science does wonders for mortals, so omnipotent is Truth,
but more of Christian Science must be gained in order to continue in well
doing." (Science and Health, p. 449)

But awakening is not just a
matter of reading the Bible and Science and Health. It isn't just a matter of
saying we're God's man. Awakening is something you become. It's letting your
nature, your character, your very being, yield to the Mind of the Christ.

Sooner or later, for instance,
we'll understand that God's man doesn't live in matter. Of all the teachings of
Christian Science this seems the hardest to accept. And it's no wonder because
we seem to live in a matter body in a matter world.

However, a basic tenet of
Christian Science is the nothingness of matter. On the surface this sounds
abstract, unrealistic. But a casual glance at Christian Science often leads to
superficial conclusions.

For instance: some time ago I
spoke to an interdenominational prayer group. One of the women present at that
meeting had been confused for sometime about this point. Her minister had
explained that when Christian Science says, there is no matter, it wipes out
the entire universe: the sun, stars, trees, grass and says, it just isn't
there! Now that's a casual glance.

A serious look reveals that
Christian Science denies the substance and intelligence of matter because these
beliefs deny the omnipotence and omnipresence of Spirit. This isn't overlooking
what the five physical senses are saying. It's actually breaking through the
dream and revealing the true nature of the universe, unseen by the senses.

The Bible teaches that God is
infinite. So, if God is Spirit, as Jesus declared, and He fills all space, then
his universe must be spiritual, not material.

The Bible also indicates that God
is Mind. A mind can't contain solid objects, but it can and does contain the
concepts, or ideas, of these objects.

This gives you a peek at what
Christian Science means when it insists that Mind's, God's, universe is
composed of spiritual ideas, not material things. And each spiritual idea is
perfect, indestructible, eternal. The sun, stars, trees, grass, are beautiful,
to our physical sense of them. I like to think that in their true nature,
they're even more beautiful, because they are spiritual ideas, manifestations
of divine Mind.

Where does God's man fit into all
of this? "Man" is the term the Bible and Christian Science uses for
the male and female of God's creating. It's also the family name for the sons
and daughters of God. This man, as described in the first chapter of Genesis,
is a spiritual idea of divine Mind, the highest idea in all His universe. Man
is, in fact, God's masterpiece.

How can we understand that
existence really is spiritual and not material? God has given each one of us
the capacity to understand spiritual things, and we call it spiritual sense.
There's a lovely description of this in the book of Job, where Elihu says to
Job: "There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth
them understanding." (Job 32:8)

No doubt the Master's spiritual
sense helped him prove that matter was not the solid substance it appeared to
be. Look at the conquest he made over the world's conviction that matter has
power and intelligence. He walked on the water, he passed through the walls of
a room, and he quieted a raging storm. It's clear that Jesus knew something
wonderful, and powerful, about God and man.

The revelation that came to Mrs. Eddy helps humanity

The three factors I mentioned,
that are usually present whenever there's a spiritual awakening, were certainly
evident in the life of Mary Baker Eddy.

Reading biographies of Mrs. Eddy
puts a lot of things into perspective. When you read about various events in
her experience, the struggles she had to establish her church, you can trace
her awakening from the Adam-dream.

Mrs. Eddy's mental readiness for
the revelation of Truth, and her willingness to yield to the influence of the
Christ, are obvious to anyone who studies her writings.

Mrs. Eddy was spiritually-minded
even as a child. She was brought up in a religious home with a deep love of the
Bible. She once told a friend that while other children were out playing, she
sometimes preferred to read the Scriptures.

So, it was natural for her to
turn to God after the tragic loss of loved ones. And it was natural for her,
during a lifetime of physical suffering, to question why Christians weren't
doing the healing works of Jesus and his disciples. And it was just as natural
for her to devote her life in search of the answer.

This revelation of Truth didn't
come to Mrs. Eddy all at once, in one great burst of light. It's true that she
had a severe experience that changed the entire course of her life. She saw
something about God and man she'd never seen before. But, compared to what was
revealed to her later, over the ensuing years, that initial discovery turned
out to be just a glimpse.

Here's how she explains it:
"I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that
cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith;
but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute
conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The
revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently
through divine power." (Science and Health, p. 109)

When those who are unfamiliar with
Christian Science awaken to this revelation of Truth, they'll understand why
Christian Scientists hold Mrs. Eddy in such high regard. Right now, there are
many who think Mrs. Eddy's followers worship her. It may be that some Christian
Scientists have given this impression, without meaning to.

But such personal sense, clinging
to personality, was not encouraged by Mrs. Eddy. In fact, her teachings turn
thought away from personality  and from Mrs. Eddy  to God, man's divine
source.

But adulation of those whom we
admire is a human weakness that many of us have. It's sort of a stage we pass
through on our road to spiritual maturity. Still, there's quite a difference
between adulation and a genuine appreciation of the good someone's life
represents. Appreciation is a form of gratitude. And gratitude is a Christly
quality because it flows from divine Love.

I can remember a fine healing of
severe colds my two children had in one day, when I spent that day joyously
thanking God for the lifework of all who had advanced Christianity. I went back
as far as Moses!

You see, prayer in Christian
Science is based on the two great commandments of Jesus. We can't really love
God without loving His children. We can't think of ourselves as God's man and
see our neighbor as a sinful mortal.

Knowing this, we can pray more
effectively for mankind. We can see, for instance, that the immorality and
sensuality that seems so rampant today, are lies about God's pure and holy man.
And God's universal family can't be broken up by separation or divorce. Every
member of God's family is nourished and cherished by divine Love's constant
outpouring of goodness. God's man has never gone to war, nor caused a war.

You can see that the spiritual understanding
of God and man Christian Science teaches helps contribute to the healing of
humanity's problems. And it helps each one of us remain at peace in the midst
of what Adam's man believes is a turbulent world.

Now let's review briefly what
we've learned from our discussion today. I've shown you that three factors are
usually present in spiritual awakening: a mental readiness, the influence of
the Christ, and an acceptance of the revelation of Truth. You may have also
observed that the same three factors are often present in spiritual healing.
Certainly both awakening and healing require spiritual enlightenment  fresh
glimpses of the Truth about God and His creation, including His man.

We've seen the distinction
Christian Science makes between God's man and the false concept about man which
we've called in this lecture "Adam's man".

We've considered the role of the
Christ and how it awakens mankind collectively, and each one of us
individually, to the spiritual nature of God and His universe.

We've seen the importance of
putting on the Mind of Christ, and we've reminded ourselves that God has given
us the spiritual sense to understand all these things. And the wonderful part
of it all is that we don't have to wait for some future state to enjoy this heritage
as God's man. It's ours now.

Now, I'd like to share this with
you. Remember back when I told you about that word "mortal?" Had you
thought about this? Every time you deny that you are a mortal, and declare and
affirm and joyously acknowledge that you are, in fact, the spiritual image and
likeness of God, you are raising yourself from the dead. And every time you
deny that someone else is a mortal, and declare and affirm and joyously
acknowledge that that one is, in fact, the spiritual image and likeness of God,
you're helping to raise that one from the dead. This is something very precious
to think about.

The Apostle John beautifully
perceived the difference between God's man and Adam's kind of man. It shines
all through his writings. One of my favorite passages is found in the first
epistle of John, third chapter  and this is from the King James Version. It
goes like this:

"Behold, what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:
therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are
we the sons of God " (I John 3:1,2)

An interesting modern translation
puts it this way:

"Consider the incredible
love that the Father has shown us in allowing us to be called 'children of God'
 and that is not just what we are called, but what we are. ... [This] explains
why the world will no more recognise us than it recognised Christ. Here and
now," my dear friends, "we are Gods children."(J.B. Phillips New Testament)